Until the current console generation, I’d not gotten into the Zelda games. But when I tried out Twilight Princess, I fell in love. You’ll notice that when I listed my top five favorite games, Twilight Princess was number five. “So!”, I said, “This is what all the fuss is about. Zelda games are awesome! I needs to try me some more! That Ocarina game seems to be one that everybody loves; I’ll try that.” I downloaded Ocarina of Time on the Wii Virtual Console, played for about an hour, and got bored. Or maybe I got distracted. What else was I playing back then? No More Heroes? Oblivion? Elite Beat Agents? Not sure. But just recently, I started playing Wind Waker based on a friend’s recommendation. He said that Wind Waker was his favorite Zelda game. I finished the game yesterday and I really did enjoy it. But did I enjoy Wind Waker more than Twilight Princess?

Wind Waker had a number of things going for it. The cel-shaded art style was a big one, although I felt that the cel-shaded graphics in Okami were way better. Wind Waker’s music was also stellar. The music in Wind Waker was even integrated into the combat, with musical hits coinciding with Link’s sword strikes. The “Mini Boss” battle music is fun, “Graaandma” is a very simple piece with a lot of heart, and I particularly enjoyed the music for the battle against Gohdan. The various themes for the island towns are all good. The sole advantage that Twilight Princess had in its music was the fact that it was performed by an actual orchestra, whereas Wind Waker’s music was synthesized. Nonetheless, I preferred the songs in Wind Waker. The ocean travel music was amongst the best bits of the Wind Waker soundtrack, which was good given that you do so damn much travelling in the game.

And that was one of my main complaints about Wind Waker – the monotonous ocean travel. Whereas Twilight Princess had scenic views, forests, and fields with landmarks, Wind Waker had just… water. I suppose it was a cheap way to make the game world big, but I much prefer Twilight Princess’s Hyrule over the vast “fishless oceans” in Wind Waker. And on that note, I really hated the sea battles. Whenever possible, I avoided them. Fleeing was so much easier than spending five minutes trying to hit some swimming enemy with a cannonball, getting knocked off of my boat four times, and ending up at half health all for no reward at the end. Those Gyorg were the worst. They’d pursue me for fifteen minutes straight while I sailed from one corner of the world to another. Often I’d set down the controller for five minutes and surf the web while travelling from place to place since it was so boring, but those damn Gyorg would force me to spend the time dodging instead. Once I got the Song of Winds this was less of an issue, but still a pain.

Looking back now on my original review of Twilight Princess, I remember many of the things I’d forgotten about Twilight Princess. It did so many different things, and it did them all so well. I’ve discussed gameplay variety a number of times before, and Twilight Princess accomplished that variety better than any other game I can think of. In Twilight Princess you snowboard, herd goats, go fishing, hang-glide from a chicken, sumo wrestle, and a number of other things I’m sure I’m forgetting. And Twilight Princess’s dungeons were the most creative I’ve ever seen. The water temple with its waterway-related puzzles was a standout, but Twilight Princess’s other dungeons had you swinging from ropes, swimming underwater, walking on walls, and hook-shotting on a floating island. I’ve heard people speak of the game’s muted colors, and I guess that I can see them if I really look, but to me the pros far outweigh the cons. Wind Waker had a bit of stealth gameplay at the very beginning which I really liked, but not nearly the variety of Twilight Princess.

All this talk really makes me want to replay Twilight Princess, but it was such a long game, and I’m wary of Zelda burnout given the upcoming Skyward Sword game, to which I’m very much looking forward.

I recently found myself with an entire weekend to myself. No spouse, no children, no chores. It’s a rarity. So what immediately sprang to mind? Video games. And as I reviewed the titles I might pick up, I realized that what I really wanted was a Zelda game. In the end, I bypassed Dead Space 2 and Assassins Creed 2 and ended up picking up copies of Metal Gear Solid 4, Metroid Prime for GameCube, 3D Dot Game Heroes, and Clive Barker’s Jericho. I never ended up starting MGS4 or Metroid Prime; they’re still on my shelf at home. I played a bunch of Jericho and decided that I don’t love it. But I spent a good amount of time with 3D Dot Game Heroes.

3D Dot Game Heroes is an unabashed clone of the original NES Legend of Zelda. It knows what it is and revels in it. It’s got a boomerang, bow and arrow, bombs, and clones of many of Zelda’s monsters. It uses apples instead of hearts and orbs instead of triforce fragments. It also includes overt references to other old school games. I even met Princess Alena, Brey, and Kiryl from Dragon Warrior 4.

The basic game is good fun, and layered on top of it are a number of new elements. Your first sword is ridiculously huge when you’re at full hearts, and can be upgraded at a smithy to be longer, wider, and pierce through obstacles. Amazingly, this doesn’t make the game too easy. There’s also a way to “book” monsters, listing them in a manual for reference. Hilariously, this is done by physically smacking the monster with your copy of the book until its listing shows up in the book. Yeah – the game has some good humor. There are also a number of other minigames, including arkanoid and tower defense clones. I haven’t found all the minigames yet.

I played a bunch of 3D Dot Game Heroes over the weekend, and got midway through the third temple. But the game wasn’t scratching the Zelda itch, so I restarted a new game of Twilight Princess, and finished the Forest Temple before the weekend was over.

I’d been chatting with a friend at a bar just before the weekend and he’d mentioned Wind Waker, which I’d never played. He’s a huge fan of Zelda to the point where he has a Triforce tattoo, and he says that Wind Waker is his most favoritest Zelda game evar. So I ordered the game online. For the past few days, I’ve been spending all my video game time on my Wii with Wind Waker. Finally, a game that’s scratching the Zelda itch.

Aside from the original NES Zelda and the side-scrolling NES sequel, Twilight Princess was my first Zelda game. I loved it. After that, I played Phantom Hourglass on the DS and enjoyed that a lot too. And while Wind Waker is seeming much more akin to Phantom Hourglass than to Twilight Princess, I’m enjoying it. I prefer Twilight Princess’s open fields to the open seas of Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass, but I’m only just approaching the second temple in Wind Waker, so I’m likely too early in the game to judge its merits. I’m sure that I’ll end up taking a sizable Portal 2 break before I even get to that temple, but I’ll report back at some point with my take on Wind Waker.

The idea was so fascinating to me that I went ahead and drew up my own gaming tree in MS Paint. It’s not pretty, but hopefully it’s legible.

Click for full size version

Back in 1990, I was in high school. I remember reading in a computer magazine that Ultima VI had been released for the Commodore 64. At the time, Ultima V was one of my favorite games of all time, and I really wanted to play the sequel. But for whatever reason – money, girls, college applications – I never bought the game. I really wish I had, as Ultima VI looks to have been at least as good and as complex as my beloved Ultima V.

I’ve currently got The Ultima 6 Project installed on my computer, which is a complete remake of the old game done in the engine for the original Dungeon Siege. I’d really like to play it, but like anything else, it’s all about how much free time I’ve got.

Maybe it’s a game that we didn’t hear of until years after its initial release, maybe it’s just that we were busy at the time in our lives when the game released, or maybe we just weren’t interested. In any event, all gamers have games that they’re a bit ashamed to have never played, and I’m no different. List of Shame is a short series of articles in which I plan to cover the games on my own personal List of Shame.

Nineteen Ninety Eight. It sounds like such a long time ago. And it was a fantastic year for video games. And while a number of my list-of-shame games come from 1998, the only one I currently own is Metal Gear Solid.

While the Playstation 3 I own isn’t one of the original models with the Emotion Engine that runs Playstation 2 games, all Playstation 3 consoles will run old PS1 games. This is why my copy of Metal Gear: Solid that I picked up on EBay some years back has been sitting on my shelf alongside Dead Space and Batman: Arkham Asylum for the past year or so.

I’ve played the beginning of Metal Gear Solid 3, which I still own. I’ve even played 90% of the way through Metal Gear Solid 2 in one of the worst PC ports I’ve ever seen. But although I’ve played some of the training missions in Metal Gear Solid a couple years ago, I’ve never played the actual game.

I plan to play it. At some point. I don’t know when.

Maybe it’s a game that we didn’t hear of until years after its initial release, maybe it’s just that we were busy at the time in our lives when the game released, or maybe we just weren’t interested. In any event, all gamers have games that they’re a bit ashamed to have never played, and I’m no different. List of Shame is a short series of articles in which I plan to cover the games on my own personal List of Shame.

The first one is Ico, the 2001 Playstation 2 game that became its creators’ name. Team Ico later released Shadow of the Colossus, and has created the forthcoming The Last Guardian, a game to which I’m very much looking forward. But I’ve never played Ico.

I plan to remedy this very soon when the Ico/Shadow of the Colossus HD Collection is released this Spring. I’d have bought the game even if it were only Shadow of the Colossus HD, because I absolutely loved that game, and the notion of picking up trophies as I play sounds like fun. The fact that it comes with Ico, which I’ve never played, seals the deal. I’m still waiting for the release date to be announced.

In a wonderful blending of different NES games, Super Mario Crossover lets you play Super Mario Brothers using Mario, Megaman, Samus, Simon Belmont, Zelda, or one of those guys from Contra. Each one retains all the abilities from their native game, which means that Simon can throw axes and Zelda has a boomerang that stuns enemies. Very cool.

Play Super Mario Crossover

There’s a lot of hate out there for the 2d sidescroller Zelda sequel. I was one of the few who really enjoyed the game. I loved fighting the shield-bearing knights in the game’s dungeons. And I bought the Nintendo DS version of the game and replayed it.

Now, there’s a 3d version of the game that you can play in your browser. It’s really very cool. You need to take a look. You’ll need to install the Unity player plugin to give it a try.

Play Zelda 2 in 3D

Let’s take a look at what games were actually released in 1998. Baldur’s Gate. Half-Life. StarCraft. Ocarina of Time. Metal Gear Solid. Thief: The Dark Project. Grim Fandango. Fallout 2. Resident Evil 2. That’s eight legendary titles, five of which launched their own very successful game franchises, the other three being sequels in successful game franchises. When you add Rainbow Six, Unreal, Banjo-Kazooie, and Final Fantasy Tactics into the mix, 1998 was one impressive year.

So let’s take a look at the decade between then and now and try to figure out whether 1998 is truly as good as it seems to have been. A sort of software release year death match, if you will.

1999.

Prince’s party year gave us Silent Hill, Planescape: Torment, Everquest, System Shock 2, Baldur’s Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast, and Super Smash Bros. for the N64. Not bad, but certainly no 1998. We also got Descent, Final Fantasy VIII, Ultima: Ascension, and Donkey Kong 64.

2000.

The Y2K year brought us The Sims, Deus Ex, Diablo 2, Baldur’s Gate 2, Thief 2, Icewind Dale, Resident Evil: Code Veronica, Vagrant Story, MechWarrior 4, Final Fantasy IX, and Majora’s Mask. A pretty good haul, but only two franchise-starters. Diablo 2 and Baldur’s Gate 2 were certainly both huge, but it’s no 1998. Sacrifice, Chrono Cross, Escape from Monkey Island, and The Longest Journey were also released in 2000.

2001.

The first year of the new milennium gave us Halo, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Max Payne, Ico, Arcanum, Grand Theft Auto 3, Devil May Cry, Metal Gear Solid 2, Advance Wars, Dragon Warrior VII, Silent Hill 2, Final Fantasy X, and the Throne of Bhaal expansion for Baldur’s Gate 2. Some good stuff, but it still can’t compete with 1998.

2002.

In 2002, we got Neverwinter Nights, Dungeon Siege, Morrowind, Battlefield 1942, Kingdom Hearts, Ratchet & Clank, Splinter Cell, Warcraft 3, Jedi Knight 2, Metroid Prime, and GTA: Vice City. Once again, slim pickings compared to 1998.

2003.

2003 brought us Beyond Good & Evil. Already sounding good. Also, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Deus Ex, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Galactic Civilizations, Fire Emblem, Wind Waker, Mario Kart: Double Dash, Max Payne 2, SimCity 4, Civilization 3, Silent Hill 3, Devil May Cry 2, Jak 2, and the first Call of Duty. Good year. Comes fairly close to 1998. But Prince of Persia, KotOR, and Deus Ex don’t match up to Baldur’s Gate, Half-Life, Starcraft, and Metal Gear Solid.

2004.

In 2004, World of Warcraft came out. Also, Halo 2, Half-Life 2, Far Cry, Katamari Damacy, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, Fable, Killzone, Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines, City of Heroes, EverQuest II, Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth, Myst IV, The Sims 2, Thief: Deadly Shadows, Doom 3, Knights of the Old Republic 2, Metal Gear Solid 3, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Metroid Prime 2, Silent Hill 4, Jak 3, Final Fantasy XI, and Unreal Tournament 2004. Lots and lots of releases. But in my opinion, the big ones don’t quite reach the caliber of the games released in 1998.

2005.

2005 might be the first year that’s a true contender to 1998. A bit part of that is that 2005 is when the Playstation 2 really reached its peak. I’m still of the opinion that the Playstation 2 might be the best game console ever. In 2005, we saw the release of Guitar Hero, Resident Evil 4, God of War, Shadow of the Colossus, Psychonauts, Jade Empire, Indigo Prophecy, Civilization IV, Doom 3, Lego Star Wars, Dungeon Siege 2, Killer7, Call of Duty 2, Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Condemned: Criminal Origins, Mario Kart DS, Destroy All Humans, Meteos, Lumines, Nintendogs, and Guild Wars. Guitar Hero, God of War, and the Lego games became big franchises. Resident Evil, Civ, Call of Duty, Prince of Persia, and Doom were already big game franchises. And there are some other excellent games in the mix too: Shadow of the Colossus, Psychonauts, Jade Empire, and Indigo Prophecy are big favorites of mine. It really is amazing how many of the good games in 2005 were Playstation 2 games.

The sheer volume of games blows 1998 away, especially considering that 2005 also saw the release of GTA: Liberty City Stories, The Matrix Online, Quake 4, Age of Empires 3, Dragon Quest VIII, Advance Wars: Dual Strike, and a couple Warioware games. Call me a heretic, but I’m willing to say that 2005 was at least the equal of 1998, and if you like enough of the abovementioned games, you might consider it superior. Let’s keep looking at later years.

2006.

2006 is when the current generation of consoles showed up. This brought us a great list of games including The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Gears of War, Oblivion, Okami, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Company of Heroes, Final Fantasy XII, Resistance: Fall of Man, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Titan Quest, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Prey, Chromehounds, Dead Rising, Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Star Wars: Empire at War, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, Tomb Raider: Legend. The volume of games has gone way up. There were also a lot of sequels: Neverwinter Nights 2, Galactic Civilizations 2, LEGO Star Wars 2, Kingdom Hearts 2, Battlefield 2, Battle for Middle Earth 2, Guitar Hero 2, and Call of Duty 3. The Nintendo DS Lite also came out, and brought with it games like Metroid Prime Hunters, Brain Age, and New Super Mario Bros. Perhaps not quite as good as 2005, but the XBox 360, Nintendo Wii, and Playstation 3 were still new.

2007.

In 2007, we saw some downright amazing games. My “best-of” list includes The Orange Box, BioShock, Rock Band, Mass Effect, Halo 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Crysis, Assassin’s Creed, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, God of War 2, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Call of Duty 4, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, and WoW’s Burning Crusade expansion. Those were the good ones. But there was also a lot of what I think of as fluff: The Witcher, Warhawk, Contra 4, Eternal Sonata, Heavenly Sword, The Darkness, Overlord, Lair, Stranglehold, Brain Age 2, Metroid Prime 3, Ratchet & Clank Future, Tabula Rasa, and Lost Planet. But even with the fluff, that first part of the list is seriously impressive for one year. It’s very hard to look at 1998 and make an argument that it was a better year than 2007.

2008.

2008 made 1998 its bitch. No More Heroes, LittleBigPlanet, Dead Space, Grand Theft Auto 4, Fable 2, Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead, Metal Gear Solid 4, Super Smash Bros Brawl, Rock Band 2, De Blob, Sins of a Solar Empire, God of War: Chains of Olympus, Supreme Commander, Red Alert 3, Mario Kart Wii, Boom Blox, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Gears of War 2, Resistance 2, Valkyria Chronicles, Far Cry 2, Mirror’s Edge, Prince of Persia, Saints Row 2, Call of Duty: World at War, Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, and the second Penny Arcade game. You might not like every one of those games, but if you do like video games, there’s going to be more than one in that list that you like. The fluff games in 2008 included Too Human, Army of Two, Condemned 2, Dark Sector, Crysis Warhead, Devil May Cry 4, Haze, Lego Indiana Jones, Lego Batman, Silent Hill: Homecoming, Wii Music. Even those aren’t horrible.

2009.

So how does this year stack up to 2008, 2005, and 1998? We’ve got Dragon Age: Origins, Street Fighter IV, Uncharted 2, Borderlands, Modern Warfare 2, Demon’s Souls, Brütal Legend, Trine, Torchlight, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Assassin’s Creed II, Left 4 Dead 2, Scribblenauts, Zelda: Spirit Tracks, Resident Evil 5, Ghostbusters, Assault on Dark Athena, F.E.A.R. 2, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Red Faction: Guerrilla, Muramasa, Prototype, inFamous, Wolfenstein, Fat Princess, Galactrix, Halo Wars, Killzone 2, Bowser’s Inside Story, MadWorld, Fl0wer, Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles, and the Punch-Out remake.

Wow. Just… wow. When you look at it this way, it becomes fairly clear that the quantity of games is going up, and the quality, while it may fluctuate from year to year, really isn’t going down. Very little fluff in 2009. The Conduit, Overlord 2, maybe Dead Space: Extraction and Muramasa. But even games like Bionic Commando and Still Life 2 seem pretty good, although I haven’t played either.

2010 is looking fantastic too, with games like Starcraft 2, Heavy Rain, No More Heroes 2, Alan Wake, God of War 3, Bioshock 2, Mass Effect 2, Final Fantasy XIII, and Alpha Protocol. Who knows what else will be announced?

I should make it clear here that I never got into Super Mario World or Mario 64, largely since I never owned those Nintendo Consoles. I know that those games were huge and everybody and their cat has incredibly fond memories of them, but alas – I don’t. I likewise never played any of the Tomb Raider games. Ever. Obviously, I am defective. Other platformer franchises lacking from my repetoire: Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, Laurel & Hardy.

In looking back at my favorite platformers, I’ve got to notice that all but one are 2D platformers. It just seems like the 3D platformers as a rule just don’t work as well. First-person platforming like Mirror’s Edge or the horrible platforming portions in the original Half-Life just don’t work. While third-person platforming in 3D games is generally better, it can fail pretty hard at times. The 3D platforming in games like Super Mario Galaxy and Psychonauts was mostly okay, but the platforming in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed annoyed me so much that I had to stop playing both those games before I’d gotten a quarter into either.

So now, I’d like to share my own favorite platformers, going back as far as the early eighties.

• Jumpman (Commodore 64, 1983)
  
  Jumpman’s great strength was its variety. While in the game’s early levels the premise was as simple as running around, jumping over monsters, and colecting red dots, the later levels got far more complex and varied. In some levels, you had a gun, and the button would fire the gun instead of jumping. One level let you throw lances to kill a dragon. Many levels are very puzzle-like, containing triggers that open or close doors, add or remove sections of floor, or move floating platforms. In one level, you create an explosion each time you jump. And I remember one level that generated clones every five seconds who would follow your exact path in the same way as the shadow selves in Braid – if a clone touched you, you died, so you had to keep moving.All of the above is from memory, but reading through the wikipedia page now, I see that there were 30 levels in the game. I always played on “randomizer” so as to experience the later levels I’d never have reached if I were playing straight through.Jumpman is supposed to (eventually) be released for the Wii Virtual Console, but if you’re impatient, a fan remake is available here.

• The Great Giana Sisters (Commodore 64, 1987)
  The version of this game that my brothers and I always used to play was a hacked version. The sprites had been changed to make them look like Super Mario Brothers. The levels were far far different from the actual Super Mario Brothers game, but they were fun, and they were at some points very difficult. But I was 15 years old. I got very good at the game, and played a lot of it. My brothers and I still have fond memories of inventing stupid names for each of the game’s monsters.

• Kenseiden (Sega Master System, 1988)
  I never owned a Sega Master system, but I borrowed one from a friend for a few months when he’d moved along to some better console – perhaps a Genesis. My favorite game on the SMS was Kenseiden. You played a Samurai, fighting various monsters, spirits, and demons. Each time you beat one of the game’s bosses, you’d get a scroll which detailed a samurai sword technique. You could gain overhead slashes, running cuts, and higher jumps.The game’s sixteen levels also had branching paths – you could skip certain portions of the game and take the path you wanted. I don’t remember seeing this in any other contemporary platformers until Castlevania 3, a few years later.

• Double Dragon 2 (Nintendo, 1988)
  The Double Dragon series is half platformer, half side-scrolling beat-em-up. I’d played the original Double Dragon, and I later played Double Dragon 3, but what I really liked about Double Dragon 2 was the variety of moves available. I suppose I liked the game for many of the same reasons I fell in love with Street Fighter 2. The spinning hurricaine kick was easy. The super uppercut was harder, but still doable 90% of the time. The tough one was the jumping hyper knee.In Double Dragon 2, you could punch your enemy and get him into a headlock. From there, you could give him overhead elbows, knee him in the stomach, or throw him over your shoulder. You could also kick him straight out of the headlock. This allowed you to throw enemies over cliffs, instantly killing even the tougher ones. I used to go through entire levels trying to throw or kick every single enemy over a cliff. It was fun.

• Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse (Nintendo, 1990)
  Maybe it was just because Castlevania 3 was the first game in the series that I really got into, but I absolutely loved this game. Maybe it was because you could pick up extra traveling companions along the way – there were 3 extra characters, and depending on the path through the game you chose, (branching paths!) you could pick up Syfa, Alucard, or Grant. Grant was a pirate character who could climb on walls, Alucard was a vampire and could throw fireballs and change into a bat, and Syfa was a wizard who could cast various spells instead of throwing axes and knives. Awesome.

• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Playstation, 1997)
  I played Symphony of the Night on my Playstation and was immediately blown away. Amazing game. The game’s music was better than anything I’d ever heard. And the addition of RPG elements such as leveling and equipment changed Castlevania in a fundemental way that has carried through in all of its successors. Although I hear a lot of hype today about how Borderlands is changing things up by combining RPGs and Shooters, Symphony of the Night did that more than ten years ago when they combined RPGs and Platformers. They also added in Street Fighter like movements in for casting spells and using certain items’ special abilities. The number of secret spells and abilities in the game is huge. And hidden areas are absolutely everywhere. I don’t think there’s any platformer that I’ve put as much time into as I have Symphony of the Night.

• Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo Wii, 2007)
  Mario Galaxy is the only 3D platformer on this list. While games like Trine and LittleBigPlanet run on a 3D engine, they’re still fundamentally 2D in their gameplay. Super Mario Galaxy is a truly 3D platformer, harking back to Mario 64. The levels are incredibly varied, allowing for flying levels, underwater levels, 2D levels, ray surfing levels, and even a Monkeyball level. The power-ups are equally as varied, and you can complete the game without being forced to complete the 30 most difficult levels. Personally, I only got 96 stars.

• Trine (Playstation Network, 2009)
  
  Yes, I rave about Trine quite often. I love the game. It definitely belongs here amongst the ranks of the best platform games I’ve ever played. You’ve got three characters, each of whom go up in levels and gather loot synchronously, and you can play with two or three players should you be so inclined. The game’s puzzles tend to have more than one solution, so if your wizard dies, it’s likely that you can get across that chasm without creating a magical bridge. Plus, the game has some very doable trophies, and it’s fun for me to think that there’s a game out there other than Plants versus Zombies in which I’m actually capable of getting 100% completion. A platinum trophy? Geez – I’ve never yet even gotten a gold one. Sign me up.